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Monday marks three years since Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced to military operation in Ukraine.
Unleashing the worst security crisis in Europe since World War II. President Trump campaigned on a promise to end the war quote in one day, and recently he's revealed his approach to ending the conflict. But it's a path that reverses years of US foreign policy in the region. Here's Trump speaking on Wednesday, a dictator without elections. Zelensky better move fast or he's not going to have a country level He's called Ukrainian President Voladimir Zelensky a dictator while engaging
in direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. His team has also held closed door talks with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia that excluded Ukraine. One policy U turn after another.
I think what we've seen over the past week is the Trump administration really being willing to go where the Biden administration was not when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.
That's Bloomberg reporter Ian Marlowe. He was justin Ryod where he got a first hand look at the US strategy shift, and he's been tracking its reverberations throughout.
Europe, making outreach to Russia that potentially alienates Europe, definitely alienates Ukraine with the idea of a sort of Hail Mary attempt to end the war.
Zelensky has expressed an openness to direct talks with Russia, but criticized Trump for his approach. He called out Trump for a false claim he made on Tuesday that it was Ukraine that started the war. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal, as Trump charges forward. Zelensky warned that Ukraine would not RECOGNI any
agreements quote about US without US. So where does that leave hopes of an end to the war and what's on the table for those negotiations from Bloomberg's Washington bureau. This is the Big Take DC Podcast. I'm Salaia Moosen today on the show inside the latest efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine and what Washington's policy pivot could mean for America's role as a superpower on the global stage. Last Wednesday, President Trump got on the
phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was the first publicly announced contact between Putin and a US president since Russia launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine in February twenty twenty two.
We had a great call, and it lasted for a long time, over an hour. The frenzy and pace at which the US and the Trump administration now is engaging on foreign policy and engaging in ways that are very disruptive and very new and are one hundred and eighty degrees different than what the Biden administration was doing. I think that's got a lot of people discombobulated.
During the Biden administration, the US refused to engage with Russia on the war in Ukraine, and as Bloomberg's Ian Marlow says, that's in part because Russia hadn't shown signs that it was serious about wanting to end it. Putin has sunk enormous resources into achieving his goal of claiming Ukraine as part of Russia.
The Biden administration thought it would be pointless that Putin was not interested in coming to peace with Ukraine, that he wanted to subjugate Ukraine. That's why people think this negotiation process that the Trump administration is trying to launch is so fraught with risk.
Trump is gaming out an approach that he'd touted on the campaign trail for months last year, getting on the phone and striking a deal. But his move flew in the face of a US approach that had centered on Ukrainian involvement and cooperation with European allies.
Plus, the US wants to basically wind down military and other humanitarian financial aid to Ukraine because they don't think the US taxpayer is going to support it for much longer.
Trump's Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said as much. The same day that Trump spoke to Putin. Hegseth addressed NATO allies and Brussels and told them the burden of supporting Ukraine was going to fall on them.
Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non lethal aid to Ukraine.
Bloomberg Economics is estimated that protecting Ukraine and expanding militaries across Europe could cost the continent's major powers an additional three point one trillion dollars over the next decade. Hegseth also made waves by hinting at some of the concessions the US might be willing to make and ordered to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Which was unlikely that Ukraine would hold onto all its territory, unlikely that it's going to be a member of NATO. Those are kind of Russian goals for this, and a lot of people were criticizing Hexath for sort of giving up some of that leverage before the talks had even begun.
Two days after Hegseth's comments, leaders from around the world convene at the Munich Security Conference to discuss the most pressing diplomatic and security issues.
Munich was a really eye opening experience for people in Europe because of what it said about the Transatlantic Alliance.
Vice President J. D. Vance took the podium on the first day.
And basically excoriated European leaders and governments for being sort of old world liberal elite society that was suppressing right wing speech.
What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America.
That same day, Van sat down with Zelensky in Munich. Zelensky said he was looking forward to more meetings about how to end the war.
Really will want this very much, but we need real security guarantees.
And then on Tuesday, a last minute meeting was held in Saudi Arabia, top US and Russian officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, sat down for over four hours without any European allies and without Ukraine.
The US has been careful to not characterize these as a negotiation, in that the US is sitting down at the table with the Russians and hammering out Ukraine's future without Ukraine. It is a balancing act that the Biden administration tried to strike, trying not to lead Ukraine along too much, but trying to support them and trying to let Ukraine lead the process. And one outcome of that was basically that the US took a back seat and said, you know nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.
That made this week's meeting novel because it left Ukraine out of the room.
It's not clear at the moment on the US side who made that decision. I think they feel that after several years of talking with Ukraine and hearing from their leaders, they have a fairly good idea what Ukraine wants out of this. They want their land back. They want the war to end, but they don't want it to end on terms that would prevent Ukraine from becoming part of NATO, becoming part of the EU, or giving up any of its sovereign rights.
As for Ukraine's Zelenski.
He wasn't invited.
Coincidentally, Zelenski had plans to be in Saudi Arabia that day.
And he canceled his trip, and he was fairly angry in his comments. He looks like he's getting cut out
of the process right now. The pace at which the Trump administration has been willing to toss out the USU relationship to some degree and make this in some ways unprecedented outreach to Russia over the head of the EU and to start engaging in some kind of talks that we saw here in Saudi Arabia without Europe, without Ukraine, that this is deeply shocking, and I think a lot of people in Europe are worried that the US is willing to sell out Ukraine to some degree in terms
of letting them give up territory or other things to try and get a deal to try and end the war, because that would be a big diplomatic coup to some degree for Trump.
Coming up inside the room, were US and Russian officials met this week and where the talks could go from here. Bloomberg reporter Ian Marlow was in Saudi Arabia for the landmarks sit down between US and Russian officials on Tuesday.
The talks were held at one of the Saudi palaces, the Dria Palace, sort of marble floors, ornate chandeliers. There was a big formal meeting room where we were kind of ushered in.
On the US side, Secretary of State Mark or Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, Middle East Envoice Steve Whitkoff, and on the Russian side, diplomats like Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Foreign Policy aid Yuri Ushikov.
No one was looking happy in the room. These are serious things to discuss, and I think the US side knows to some degree that they're taking a chance here, and on the Russian side of the table too, decades of diplomatic experience, longtime Kremlin aides who have seen these things come and go. And on the US side it is a new US administration kind of bucking protocol to some degree by launching these talks. It is a different
vibe on both sides of the table. But the US side was almost constantly on the back foot to some degree because the Russians kept leaking stuff to their delegation and their reporters that came with them, and so the news was always to some degree coming out of the Russian side, and so they were really sort of framing the narrative and the Russians feel like they have the
upper hand on the battlefield. It kind of looked and felt like they might have had the upper hand coming into these talks, just because they weren't the ones who asked for them. Basically, this is kind of Trump wanting to end the war. Putin appears to be quite happy waging this war and doesn't seem in any rush to stop.
Russian and US officials spoke for over four hours, setting the stage for continue conversations.
These talks have resulted in more talks, which is kind of a classic diplomatic deliverable. You agree to keep talking and it looks like you accomplish something other than that. There wasn't too much concrete that came out of this other than maybe beefing up embassy staffing for the Russians in DC and for the US in Moscow and trying to re engage and to kind of carry.
This forward still. Ian says, given the years of diplomatic freeze between the two countries, these talks were significant and they sent a signal to the rest of the world that the US isn't bound by historical alliances. On Monday, EU member states met to work on a plan to amp up military support for Ukraine. If financed by debt, that could add an additional two point seven trillion dollars to the borrowing needs of the five largest European NATO
members over the next decade. That's according to Bloomberg Economics. As we heard toward the anniversary of the war, Ian says, there are a few key questions. At the top of his mind.
Is the US willing to push Russia when it comes to these negotiations. Are there going to be any Russian concessions? What is the US willing to do to turn up the pressure to bring them to the table. And also we're going to be looking to see if there's a Trump putin summit, which would then have a whole bunch of pageantry and need to entail some kind of deliverables on either side, Presumably.
This week, a US special envoy visited Kiev to continue consultations with Ukraine about ending the war. On Wednesday, amid a bitter back and forth between the two leaders, Zelensky accused Trump of being a victim of Russian disinformation and looking ahead. On Sunday, German citizens will go to the polls to elect a new government. That election could shape the approach one of NATO's largest member countries takes to the conflict. This is The Big Take DC from Bloomberg News.
I'm Salamosen. This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was edited by Aaron Edwards, Greg White, and Larry Liebert. It was mixed by Alex Sugia and fact checked by adrian A. Tapia. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicolebeamster Bower, and Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. If you like this episode, make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take DC wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps
people find the show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week.